


Carvings, Blueberries, and Other Such Redemptions

by HunterPeverell



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Background Steve Rogers/James "Bucky" Barnes - Freeform, Coda, Continuation of, Epilogue, Gen, Mindstones and Other Malfunctions, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Sort of an, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark-centric, Wakanda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-12-02 23:43:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11520006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HunterPeverell/pseuds/HunterPeverell
Summary: Tony Stark and Bucky Barnes were never going to be friends.





	Carvings, Blueberries, and Other Such Redemptions

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! So, wtf, why is Mindstones and Other Malfunctions so popular?? I was literally not expecting that. At all. Thank you to everyone who has given it comments, kudos, and recs on various sites like the Stucky Library. So, by the request of some people, I've written a coda from Tony's POV. No clue how good it is, 'cause I can't write Tony, but I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Note: You might not actually have to read MaOM to understand this. It'd help to at least know the gist of the plot, but it's not required. This can mostly stand alone. However, if you want to read MaOM, it's [here.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6785347/chapters/15504613)
> 
> Disclaimer: Ain't mine 'cept for the plot.

Whatever they had going on, it wasn’t something Tony wanted to study too carefully.

After being thrown into the mind of one Sargent James Barnes a year and a half ago, Tony Stark had had a lot to think about.

For instance, how was he going to categorize Barnes? When he had first heard of Bucky Barnes, Cap’s sidekick, he’d been a Hero. Then, he learned that the real Barnes had died, where he then just became a Dead Hero. When Cap told everyone Bucky was alive, but had been under HYDA’s control for seventy-odd years, he’d then become some Shady Dude because what if he was faking it? How did Cap _know?_

Then Zola.

Then the tape.

Then Barnes had become a Murderer.

Tony wasn’t proud of his violent reaction, but he wasn’t about to take it back. Barnes had _killed_ his family. There was a difference, okay—there was a difference between Families of Choice and Biology and while he loved the Avengers and Pepper and Rhodey, that had been his mom and his father. Sure, maybe he hadn’t liked his old man ninety-percent of the time, but it had still been his _father._

And Barnes had _taken them from him._

Taken them before Tony said everything he wanted to say. Taken them before he could see a glimmer of pride his Howard Stark’s eyes. Taken them before his mom could meet Pepper. Taken them before they could see what he had made of the Stark legacy.

It was _Barnes’s_ fault. Sure, maybe there was some screwy mind-control thrown in there, maybe there was torture and pain but it was _no excuse._ Tony had been in a cave in who-the-hell-cares where he had been tortured and beaten and forced to watch a person he cared about die. And he had gotten himself out—he’d found a way out. It had been _him,_ his genius, his plan— _Tony had saved himself._

And Barnes didn’t even _try_ to escape.

Of course, Tony realized this was incorrect when he took a jaunt through Barnes’ mind. Barnes  
_had_ tried to escape and the torture, the pain … nothing Tony had gone through had compared.

Tony had stayed away when they resurfaced, mostly because he didn’t know what to say to Barnes and his own screwed up emotions were getting in the way of everything. Again.

So, he had started a Thing. It wasn’t even supposed to be a serious Thing, but now Tony kind of … liked it.

It started like this; Tony was visiting Wakanda under the pretense of getting his hands on some vibranium (which, okay, he really did want that, so he was going to have to find T’Challa…) while, in reality, he was visiting the fugitive Avengers.

He was busy talking to Wanda, apologizing (once again) for what he had done to her when Barnes entered the room, pale and silent as a ghost, saw Tony, turned tail, and retreated.

He had looked thin and worn, so Tony hadn’t really examined the fact that he left a package of unopened blueberries under the table he had been sitting on.

The next day, he found the package empty, but neatly folded with a wood carving of his arc reactor, no bigger than his thumbnail, each detail rendered carefully.

Which was how Tony learned Barnes had taken up woodcarving.

So, he dug through his pockets and found a package of M&Ms. He took the tiny reactor and the folded bag and replaced them with the M&Ms before leaving to track down T’Challa and discuss vibranium shipments.

The next day was the day he was scheduled to leave, but he checked the table and found the empty package and another tiny woodcarving, this one of his sunglasses. Tony snorted when he saw it, but took it nonetheless.

Still, he wasn’t sure what spurred him to send a care package to Wakanda (using his own resources, of course—wouldn’t want nosy Generals going through his things) with various things like hilarious magazines for Cap, lots of tea for Wanda, an enormous crate of coffee for Clint, five hundred origami birds for Sam (which his robots made, because Tony did not have time for that), and a big fat joke book for Scott, because he didn’t know the guy that well.

(And if there was a package of Twizzlers sitting in the plane for a certain assassin to find, well. Tony ate candy. Some if it had to fall out of his pockets sometimes, right?)

When the plane returned, the head cleaner passed Tony a much larger woodcarving, this time of Audi R8, which was Tony’s favorite car to drive. Tony idly spun the wheels and set the carving on a shelf near his desk. He’d remember to put it somewhere else. Probably.

And so, it continued for a few months, with Tony sending out presents for the Wakandan Avengers and receiving a few things in return—cards and letters from Steve and Wanda, stupid selfies from Clint, small P.S.es tacked onto the bottom of Steve’s cards from Sam, thanking him, and Scott’s signature on some of the various letters from Wanda and Steve.

And the woodcarvings. Always the woodcarvings.

Tony now had his suit, sent in pieces that were so well done it moved like an action figure, a Chitauri gun, his plane, and a tiny Stark — Avenger’s Tower. (What an awful name. He’d work on it.) All this in return for Milk Duds, M&Ms, Sour Patch Kids, and a few boxes of popcorn (among all the other Avenger’s gifts, of course.)

When his birthday rolled around, he brushed it off publicly like he had for the last couple years and flew to Wakanda to celebrate privately with his friends.

There, they showed him the largest carving Bucky had ever done.

They were Hobbit-sized, but still large. There was the Hulk roaring at the Sky and Bucky had traced Bruce along the Hulk’s chest looking determined and brave. There was Hawkeye, bow taut and arrow notched. There was Black Widow, her stingers shooting delicate wooden crackles of energy. There was Thor, hammer at the ready, his cape flowing in the wind. There was Wanda, a halo around her hands, there was Sam with his wings and his dumpy little robot bird on his shoulder, there was Scott with his suit, even that kid Peter had made it, mask on and webbing at the ready.

There was Cap, no shield in hand up back straight and gaze fierce. There was Tony, suited up and ready for anything, anything at all. And there was Rhodey in his suit, ready for a fight, mask up and his stare was a piercing as it always was.

“He’s been working on it for months,” Cap admitted, standing quietly by Tony’s side. “He’s really taken to the woodcarving.”

Tony forced himself to sniff dismissively, turn, pat Cap on the shoulder and throw out, “I’ve seen better.”

He didn’t look back to see Cap’s Disappointed face. Instead, he sought out Barnes, who was standing away from the rest of the Avengers because he wasn’t a part of Them and he knew it.

( _Maybe he could be, one day…_ a traitorous voice whispered in the back of his mind. Tony shoved it away.)

He nodded at Barnes, who nodded back.

 

 

They would never be friends. Tony didn’t want that and neither did Barnes.

But that didn’t mean they had to be enemies.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed it! I didn't want to write a sequel or anything, but this short little thing was really nice to write. Drop a comment, leave a kudos ... whatever you'd like! Feedback really, honestly helps.
> 
> ALSO! To newcomers or the remaining (haha) old readership (I suck so bad I'm sorry) I've literally stumbled across a slew of fics I've written, completed ... and never posted. There are over ten, I think. These include fics from Supernatural, Captain America, Teen Wolf, and the Wizarding World (HP and FB.) This story was among them, and I chose to post it first and let you know ... I'll be posting stories again. So, yeah. I'm going to start editing them and uploading soon, I promise. Like, actually promise this time.


End file.
